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| Low populations sometimes are yielding good. My concern is crusting after planting before emergence. It takes at least 8 or 9 plants to the foot to lift and break the crust. Fewer in the soil around here the little plants crush themselves trying. A plant that doesn't emerge doesn't produce any beans, but the area it didn't shade produces weeds. I saw that crust problem for 20 years on a farm where I rented just the house and on my farm for about 25 years.
Some of the lowest population tests have planted the traditional 160,000 per acre for 30" rows and then thinned the plants to avoid the crust emergence problem. That doesn't save any seed cost and takes extra labor to do the thinning, a task that was common in cotton fields in decades past.
Gerald J. | |
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Soybean population
